Bootstrapping, or booting, is the process of starting up any computer. One of the functions performed during this process is the detection of data-storage units that are available to the computer. Several operating systems assume that any data-storage unit that is accessible during the booting process should be made accessible to users, and, if necessary, automatically configured for their use.
While the process of booting is intended to be helpful to the user by making data-storage units available to the user, a common problem is for one operating system to make changes to a data-storage unit that corrupts data stored on that data-storage unit by another operating system connected to the same network. For example, Windows servers attached to a storage a real network (SAN) attempt to write Windows volume labels to the SAN device, which will, under certain conditions, corrupt the volume when accessed by a Linux server.